National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)

6/10

Starring

Nicholas Cage

Ed Harris

Justin Bartha

Jon Voight

Directed by Jon Turteltaub

This is what happens when a movie makes a hell of a lot of money at the box office. National Treasure (2004) was good but not a masterpiece, and after making over three times its production budget ($100 million) at the box office alone, Disney had to make another.

This time, though, we’re not only hunting for treasure—we’re also trying to clear the Gates family name in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Ian (Sean Bean), the villain from the first film, is in prison, so don’t think this is a movie about revenge. A new villain was dug up: Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), who was also after some treasure.
The story wasn’t as eventful, nor will it make you sit on the edge of your seat like the first film, where you were trying to see how Gates would find the treasure and stay alive. But it will leave you inquisitive.

That’s what I liked about the movie. It wasn’t as grand a story or as grand an adventure as the first, but again, a bunch of clues lying around in old American relics is what I find fascinating. The writers made up these bogus clues after some very nice research into American history—research you have to appreciate.
The quest looked weird and seemed off, but it was a quest nonetheless. This time, the screenplay didn’t pack a punch like the first. In the first film, the crew of Gates, Chase, and Riley had little financial help and always seemed to be at a disadvantage. Here, all they were trying to do was use all the resources at their fingertips to clear the Gates family name.

The name got stained when Patrick Gates (Jon Voight) was giving a lecture about the assassination of Lincoln and how his great-grandfather helped. A man named Wilkinson produced a page from a book that Patrick claimed his great-grandfather tore and threw into the fire to save the country from the KGC (a cult trying to win the American Civil War). On the page was Thomas Gates’ (Patrick’s great-grandfather) name as one of the chief conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln.

Well, the acting here was much the same as the first, and not much excitement could be found like in the original. We get to see Benjamin discover things, but audiences like me still enjoyed the movie, even though it wasn’t a critical success. In fact, according to critics, it’s worse than the first. The movie did end up making over three times its budget again, and talks are going around that National Treasure 3 is in the works.